Featuring a new print from the Academy Film Archive, the Academy presents a rare opportunity to see the classic 1967 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film Closely Watched Trains with an on stage discussion with the film’s director Jiri Menzel, on September 23 rd at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Tickets are $5.00 /$3.00 for students. Doors open at 6:30.

The film is set during World War II, and tells the poignant stroy of Milos, a young railway man coming of age in troubled times. As he settles into the routine of his first job, Milos slowly learns to cope with the ups and downs of ordinary life. He discovers love when he falls for a female conductor who regularly passes through, but as the war looms larger, the railroad brings the realities of Nazi occupation to his small station.

Jiri Menzel is a filmmaker, actor and stage director who has garnered worldwide acclaim for his bittersweet, philosophical comedies that owe much to modern Czech literary tradition. Born in Prague in 1938, Menzel was trained at FAMU, the Film and TV school of the Academy of the Performing Arts in Prague.

Closely Watched Trains was his first solo feature. Menzel co-wrote the screenplay with revered Czech author, and longtime collaborater Bohmil Hrabel. It is based on Hrabel’s novel of the same name.

The film is shown in Czech and German with English subtitles, in cooperation with  the Consulate of the Czech Republic in Los Angeles.

Tickets are on sale now by phone or at the box office.

SamuelGoldwyn Theater, 8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA.

Doors open at 6:30, movie is at 7:30. On stage discussion with Jiri Menzel after the film.